The file-sharing activities of BitTorrent users have become the input mechanism powering an art installation currently underway in Canada. The Pirate Cinema, a control room featuring three large screens and viewing area, is displaying a mashup of content pulled from the top 100 torrent swarms indexed by The Pirate Bay. Its creators inform TorrentFreak that with a little help from an encrypted connection to Sweden, some intriguing images are being realized.

There can be little doubt that of the millions of file-sharers using The Pirate Bay today, only a relatively small proportion will be aware of just how public their activities are.

At any given time there are dozens of organizations monitoring torrent swarms, sucking up and storing IP addresses, file hashes and timestamps for all kinds of reasons, from genuine research and “six strikes” educational programs, to the preparation of lawsuits.

However, even those aware of surveillance may be surprised at the nature of the monitoring currently being carried out by artist Nicolas Maigret and software developer Brendan Howell. Together they have created The Pirate Cinema, a BitTorrent-watching mechanism that turns file-sharers’ activities and geographic locations into an art installation.

Currently displayed at the Sight + Sound Festival in Canada, The Pirate Cinema manifests itself as a large control room featuring an array of computers coupled to a trio of over-sized screens.

The installation is powered by The Pirate Bay’s top 100 most downloaded torrents and aims to offer a window into the global nature of P2P networks and the viral aspects of torrent distribution.

“An aspect of the concept was to reuse the surveillance systems used by corporations, ISP’s and governments, for other purposes,” Maigret told TorrentFreak.

“On the other hand, the idea was also to monitor the usages or activity of people on a large scale, and to capture the vivid activity of the communities involved in sharing practices. Lastly, I really wanted to consider this ongoing activity as a live infinite Mashup – a snapshot of global file disseminations.”

With developer Brendan Howell, the project was constructed in Python using Libtorrent.

“The idea was to use only the necessary functions – a few lines of code, and to build our tool around it,” Maigret explains. “Then we developed all the monitoring parts and later the decoding process using Gstreamer.”

The installation can operate in two modes. The first constantly downloads the most popular torrents from TPB and displays fragments of them on screen. The setup can involve as many as five computers, each monitoring the site for different kinds of files for a few minutes before gathering fresh input.

The second is a ‘live performance’ version which relies on files such as movies and music being selected by the installation’s operator or ‘performer’. The downloaded content is then played like an instrument and therefore may have cultural, political or economic context, the creators explain.

However, in addition to the playback of segments of media, each screen presents additional information, including the source and destination IP addresses of the computers sharing the content being displayed. This provides a unique visualization of activity between BitTorrent users, wherever they are in the world.

“BitTorrent was a deliberate choice for many reasons. First of all it’s really a Peer-to-Peer architecture and that’s important even symbolically – people/peers are at both sides of each action,” says Maigret.

“Also BitTorrent is not only about mainstream medias, but theoretically open to all kinds of files and content. In a way, the Pirate Cinema reveals some potentials of this peer-based technical architecture.”

The installation also uses the nature of BitTorrent sharing – pieces of fragmented video being shunted around peers in a swarm – to create corresponding visuals.

“This fragmentation loosens the exchanges between different recipients. A file can then be recomposed sample by sample until it is complete, from snippets emanating from separate users and in a disorderly manner. From a cinematic perspective this preliminary fragmentation of the media is also a fragmentation of the film material and of the narration.

“It creates many formal specificities: random editing, weaving together different films frame by frame, glitches and merging of different fragments. When watching the installation, we can’t help ourself interpreting the flows, it produces lots of connections and new narrations, from those chance combinations.”

In terms of the collage of content presented through The Pirate Cinema, Maigret has observed similarities between various TV series as they appear on screen, noting familiar framing, casting and expressions. The diverse sources of pirate content also provide interesting variety.

“At times, you can also see multiple versions of the same films, screeners captured in cinema theaters using different material and framing,” Maigret reveals.

Finally, for readers wondering about the legality of the installation, its creators have indeed considered the implications.

“We saw it as a kind of game. Ever since the beginning of the project, we anticipated the operating modes of the system so that it could be presentable regardless of different countries’ legislations. For example, an encrypted connection to Sweden (iPredator / The Pirate Bay) is used to anonymize each machine used in the project. Fragments of the files are encoded and remain on our machine only temporarily.”

The use of a VPN means that while millions of other peers run the risk of becoming a temporary fixture in The Pirate Cinema installation, its creators won’t ever be able to turn the cameras accidentally upon themselves.